"GO, LOVELY ROSE."

BY EDMUND WALLER.

[EDMUND WALLER was born at Coleshill, in Herefordshire, in 1605, and was educated at Cambridge. At twenty-three years of age he married a rich heiress, who died soon afterwards. He then wooed Lady Dorothea Sidney, eldest daughter of the Earl of Leicester, to whom, under the name of Saccharissa, he dedicated the greater part of his poetry; but she haughtily rejected his addresses, and he married another. During the Commonwealth, he was committed to prison for a plot, and to save his life made a confession of guilt; but he did not obtain his liberty until he had suffered a year's confinement, and paid a fine of ten thousand pounds. He then set out for France, where he remained, until permitted by Cromwell to return. After the Restoration, he became a favourite both of Charles II. and James II. He died in 1687.

Waller was witty and accomplished, and his familiarity with the Court gave to his verses a smoothness which has hardly been exceeded in modern times. He sat in Parliament for a long time, and distinguished himself on many occasions; twenty thousand copies of one of his speeches were sold in a single day.]

Go, lovely rose !

Tell her that wastes her time and me,

That now she knows,

When I resemble her to thee,

How sweet and fair she seems to me.

Tell her that's young,

And shuns to have her graces spied,

That, hadst thou sprung

In deserts, where no men abide,

Thou must have uncommended died.

Small is the worth

Of beauty from the light retired;

Bid her come forth,

Then die! that she

The common fate of all things rare
May read in thee,

How small a part of time they share

That are so wondrous sweet and fair!

RETIREMENT.

BY CHARLES COTTON.

[CHARLES COTTON was born at Beresford, in Staffordshire, in 1630, and was educated at Cambridge. Having travelled for some time, he retired to his estate, which had been much embarrassed by his father, and there gave himself up to study and angling, from which he did not permit himself to be diverted. To improve his circumstances, he devoted much of his time to translations. When forty years of age, he obtained a captain's commission; and he afterwards married the Countess Dowager of Ardglass, who had a jointure of £1,500 a year. But even this did not extricate him from his difficulties, as his wife's fortune was secured to her; and he died insolvent at Westminster, in 1687. Cotton was witty and accomplished; he was an intimate friend of Izaak Walton.]

FAREWELL, thou busy world, and may

We never meet again;

Here I can eat, and sleep, and pray,

And do more good in one short day

Than he who his whole age outwears

Upon the most conspicuous theatres,
Where nought but vanity and vice appears.

Good God! how sweet are all things here!

How beautiful the fields appear!

How cleanly do we feed and lie!
Lord! what good hours do we keep!

How quietly we sleep!

What peace, what unanimity!

How innocent from the lewd fashion,

Is all our business, all our recreation!

How I love, at liberty,

By turns to come and visit ye?

Dear Solitude, the soul's best friend,
That man acquainted with himself dost make,
And all his Maker's wonders to intend,
With thee I here converse at will,

And would be glad to do so still,

For it is thou alone that keep'st the soul awake.

How calm and quiet a delight

Is it, alone,

To read, and meditate, and write,

By none offended, and offending none!

To walk, ride, sit, or sleep at one's own ease, And, pleasing a man's self, none other to displease.

O my beloved nymph, fair Dove,

Princess of rivers, how I love

Upon thy flowery banks to lie,

And view thy silver stream,

When gilded by a summer's beam!

And in it all thy wanton fry,

Playing at liberty;

And with my angle, upon them

The all of treachery

I ever learn'd, industriously to try!

Such streams Rome's yellow Tiber cannot show;